The results fit with expectations overall (Dan is indeed Ashkenazi Jewish, and Luke has some Eastern European ancestry). It will be interesting to see what Vincent and Don make of their results - and we'll also be able to compare them to our PCA clustering shortly (still finalising our reference data-set).

On my end, I am not aware of any Jewish Ashkenazi background. I'd be curious to figure out where this signal is coming from and whether it is spurious or not.

I've found out from people that have communicated to me their results that Jews invariably score high on the AJ component of this test (100% scores like Dan's are not uncommon), but low AJ scores on non-Jews also occur.

It could be anything from other Jewish-like ancestry not represented in the test (e.g., some Arabs get high AJ scores), or cryptic ancestry not known to the person, or the limitations of the test itself (as there are 192 SNPs in common between the 23andMe results and the Price et al. panel it is using).

There's another test:For those who wish to double-check, they can participate in Polako's BGA: http://bga101.blogspot.com/

There already is one Greek participant Dienekes...

Incidentally, a control test for Euro-DNA-Calc is the Ancestry Finder tool in 23andme; if one has up to a 45% Euro DNA Calc score, but 0-1% Ashkenazi Jewish on Ancestry Finder then Euro DNA Calc indicates shared Mediterranean ancestry, not recent Jewish ancestry.

I'll post tomorrow or the day after an analysis of Near Eastern populations with respect to Europeans and Africans which identifies a specific cluster centered on Arabs.

As recent studies on Jews have shown shared autosomal ancestry between Jews and Arabs, Jews ought to register -in principle- a relatively high value in that "Arab cluster", while the Tuscans register only 0.3% of it.

It will be interesting to see what DBV001 and VXP001 score in that component, and I'm sure I'll get around to checking that.

How accurate is EURO-DNA-CALC? It did pick out the sole Ashkenazim member of that genomesunzipped group.

I used Dienekes program some while ago and it came out 87% SE European with 8% NW European and 5% Ashkenazim. The latter figures did intersect zero. I should be mostly SE European being Maltese going back many hundreds of years with no other ancestry. However, other tests, McDonald's for instance, show a significant Middle Eastern score similar to that found in South Italians. I am just wondering why this Middle Eastern score was not picked up by Dienekes program as Ashkenazi.

"It is interesting to see where R-M269(xL23) is concentrated. In Europe I see cases in Germany, Switzerland, Slovenia, Poland, Hungary, Russia, the Ukraine."

My comment [blog comments, Myres paper, August]:

"Yes, and Western Europe, especially Scotland and Ireland."

Is it possible that the "Ashkenazi" that Euro-DNA-Calc is picking up is instead more broadly the autosomal signature that accompanies populations with an elevated level of yDNA R-M269(xL23) or R-M269(xM412)?

You've mentioned before that there is a strong correlation between J2 and R1b. Maybe that's not any R1b, but a specific type of R1b, such as R-M269(xL23) or R-M269(xM412).

There are three other things that lead me in this direction:

1. Gioiello, who says he is not Jewish, and doesn't know of any Jewish ancestors, is M269(xL23), (R1b1b2a),

2. According to the Myres paper, there is 27% frequency of L23(xM412) in the Upper Rhone Valley.

3. There is the possibility that the name Plagnol or Planiol originates in the Auvergne, which, if I remember correctly, has an elevated level of R-M269(xM412). Vincent, perhaps you could help us here?

Marnie, not only I have a paper trail that links me to an ancestor of mine of the beginning of the 14th century (Signorino del Badia) who lived in Castelfiorentino near Florence, but I am also K1a1b1, the ancestor of the most part of Ashkenazi Jews who are K1a1b1a, but my mutation 9932A is probably typically Italian from very ancient times. Also a relative of mine, my cousin’s husband Fabrizio Federighi, tested by me at SMGF, is R1b1b2* (L23-), very close to many Near Eastern haplotypes, and maternally R0a, but with mutations we find only in Tuscany. I am not able to explain my 23% and 19% of Ashkenazi ancestry by 23andMe and deCODEme. In fact there isn’t a recent relatedness with Jews: on Relative Finder at 23andME I have a few persons linked to me, and all of European (mostly from the British Isles) descent, then the link with Jews isn’t recent.

I permit not agreeing with Dienekes about the Balkan origin of R-L23 and R-M412/L51: I think having demonstrated ad abundantiam that their origin is in Italy.

My "spot on the map" does a PCAon a person (using 70 comparisonpopulations) and then calculates the average value of the first 9principal components of each of the 70 populations. It then least squares fits the test person to those 70 averages. It usually findsmany acceptable fit combos. It then calculates the latitude and longitude of the weighted averages of the comparison population that make up the bestfew (2 to 20) fits to the test person.

That's the short, elegant, description. The long description is like the inside of a sausage factory.

I wasn't originally sure about Aerts name, but when you look at his picture, you can be pretty sure that he is German or from the Low Countries.

Joe Pickrell seems to be the stand out. His name (Welsh or Scottish) doesn't match your analysis. It would be interesting to know why.

I have to say that until these tests can be definitive, I'm not compelled to entirely believe them.

If I were to take such a test, I'd probably be told something that is misleading, or something that I already know. The margin of error isn't narrow enough to tell me something new, such as when my ancestors reached the British Isles or clearly indicate how much Norse, Irish, English and Scottish I have in me.

Dienekes used 275K SNPs to resolve Dan Vorhaus' Ashkenazi background and Vincent Plagnol's Western European background.

I suspect that 23andme wasn't returning 550K SNP's in 2008.

Have you contacted 23andme? Why don't you ask them to redo your test with the most updated number of SNPs? And of course they should do it for free.

And after running with the latest number of SNPs, if there is still an error, 23andme should be made aware of it and should be telling people with this particular genetic background that there may be an error in evaluating the degree of their Ashkenazi ancestry.

Beyond that, it may take quite specific SNPs to resolve your particular Italian ancestry from someone with an Ashkenazi background. It may not even be possible. I have friend who is of an ancient Jewish Slovenian family. He has red hair and freckles and looks very Western European.

Marnie, certainly my 23andMe has 550k SNPs. I had also V3 for my Y (see "Adriano Squecco's spreadsheet"). Unfortunately I lost my Office on my PC by a virus and a can't now load my raw data, but if Dienekes wants I can give him my username and password both for 23andME and deCODEme and he could run again my results.

Anyway my thought has always been that are Jews (above all Ashkenazim and Sephardim)to be Italian (or European) and not the contrary.

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